Last night, the writer Lydia Davis spoke at Benaroya Hall. (Brendan Kiley wrote a really fine essay on Davis and did an interview before she arrived.) Not Nordstrom Recital Hall, the smaller hall, but Benaroya Hall, which has opera boxes and balconies. Most of the seats were taken. I was in a box on a balcony, and because of the scale of things, Davis looked like a figurine to me. I have virtually no idea what she actually looks like, except I can say that nothing about her appearance is notable at a distance.

She read a talk that she had meticulously prepared. Its subject was her influences, and it turned out to be much better than that sounds. She focused on "eccentric forms"—especially short short stories, and stories that might be confused with poems. She described how she made her way to those forms despite the pressure that she write more "normal" fiction. She read a story that relates, called "The Mother," from her 1986 collection "Break It Down":

The girl wrote a story. "But how much better it would be if you wrote a novel," said her mother. The girl built a dollhouse. "But how much better if it were a real house," her mother said. The girl made a small pillow for her father. "But wouldn't a quilt be more practical," said her mother. The girl dug a small hole in the garden. "But how much better if you dug a large hole," said her mother. The girl dug a large hole and went to sleep in it. "But how much better if you slept forever," said her mother.

She said that her mother does not like this story.

The talk worked so well in part because when she read something, because the things were short, she was able to read all of it. We heard stories and stories.

It occurred to me afterward that it might be good to assemble a list of the writers she recommended, in case you want to chase them down. So here goes:

* Kafka, "The Married Couple"
* Beckett, short fiction
* Isaac Babel, war stories
* Grace Paley, "Wants"
* Robert Walser, Peter Altenberg (Kafka's contemporaries)
* Russell Edson. Lots of Russell Edson. Such as: "Waiting for the Signal Man," "Dead Daughter," "When Things Go Wrong," "New Prose About an Old Poem"
* David Foster Wallace, "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men"
* Rae Armantrout (poet)
* Sparrow (poet), including his "Poem":

This poem replaces
All my previous poems.

Things that Davis does not recommend:

* Hemingway's famous shortest story: "For sale: Baby shoes, never worn."